


Trouble

by CrashOuch



Category: FACE Universe, Original Work
Genre: F/M, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Implied/Referenced Torture, M/M, Medical Procedures, Murder, Spoilers, Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-22
Updated: 2018-09-22
Packaged: 2019-07-15 17:34:35
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,096
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16067969
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CrashOuch/pseuds/CrashOuch
Summary: Arif's having a little trouble coming to terms with what exactly he's married into.Indy and the gang run into a little trouble mid-job, shenanigans ensue (not the happy sort).Super self indulgent little thing set somewhere around ten years after my original novel F*CE (which isn't finished yet, oops. Spoilers!). These guys are my all time favourites, so, any excuse to write about them is plenty, really.





	Trouble

Standing silently in the kitchen doorway, Arif could only make out a silhouette of the figure by the sink, their outline a faint silvery blue, the edges picked out by the moon through the window. Without making a sound, he flipped on the light.

Cole flinched, just slightly, and looked over his shoulder. He left his hands in the sink. They were soaped up to his elbows but Arif could still see the blood. A gun lay on the kitchen table and as Arif moved across the room, he forced himself to not look at it or think about what it had done that night.

Cole’s eyes were completely dark but there was something else in them as well, like a tiny part of him, miniscule and buried deep, was screaming. There was blood and dirt and sweat on his face. He kept his gaze fixed on Arif as soap suds skirted down his arms and back into the grubby brown water in the sink, the mounds of bubbles all bearing the same discolouration.

‘Where are the others?’ Arif asked coldly, painfully aware that there were only the two of them in the room.

‘Finishing up,’ Cole said, dropping his eyes back into the sink and cupping some water over one bloody arm.

Arif just looked at him.

‘She’s fine.’ Cole met his gaze firmly.

He paused for just a moment as he stared back and then Arif nodded once and stepped forward, in front of the table and beside Cole. He looked into the sink. ‘Do you want a change of clothes?’

Cole looked away again, down at himself. ‘Dana will notice,’ he said quietly after a moment or two.

Arif raised an eyebrow and folded his arms, glancing pointedly at the mess on Cole’s clothes.

It took at least another minute, during which Cole returned to washing his arms, and then he nodded, his head still lowered.

 

Once he was clean, Arif handed him the oldest dishcloth he could find to dry himself with and then dumped it on the table and they both turned to head upstairs. The back door opened a crack and someone put their head around it.

Arif felt himself tense up in alarm but Cole just turned towards it expectantly.

Jonah nodded to them and then stepped inside and picked the gun up off the table. ‘All right, boss?’ he said, eyes on Cole.

Cole nodded back and Jonah cracked the gun in half, revealing the couple of shots still loaded in it, and then vanished out of the door again.

‘Don’t wake the kids,’ Arif said as they made their way up the stairs.

‘I know you don’t like this,’ Cole replied quietly.

‘It’s just business, isn’t it?’ Arif shot back, unable to keep the slight sneer out of his voice.

They walked into Arif and Indy’s bedroom and Arif pressed a finger to his lips and gestured at the cot with the two babies asleep in it with his head.

Cole glanced over but then quickly looked away again.

Arif pulled open a drawer as quietly as he could and then cocked his head to one side; coming down the lane towards them was the unmistakable growl of a motorbike engine. The sound of it was so familiar that Arif would have been able to recognise it anywhere, but tonight something about it was off. He listened to it for another few moments and then grabbed a shirt and pair of jogging bottoms out of the drawer and tossed them to Cole.

‘Leave your others here,’ he said, opening the curtain just enough to look out into the driveway below. ‘Indy can burn them or something.’

Cole stepped out into the hallway to pull his clothes off, away from the cot, and Arif squinted out of the window, trying to spot the motorbike headlight in the darkness.

There was a crash downstairs and the crashing continued upwards, getting closer and closer.

Arif scrambled out of his bedroom and nearly knocked Cole flying in the hallway.

Jonah was breathless by the time he reached them. ‘It’s Ferrin!’ he spat, disappearing back down the stairs without ever making it quite to the top.

There was a split second of total stillness and then Cole and Arif shot after him, Cole with his trousers only half on and his shirt unchanged.

Outside, on the driveway in front of the house, Jonah was crouched over the motorbike, which was lying on its side. As the other two drew closer, they could make out another shape.

A mangled looking thing wearing Ferrin’s clothes was tangled in the bodywork of the bike. It groaned slightly and tried to get up.

Arif looked at Jonah as they ran over. ‘Get Dana!’

Jonah nodded and tore away down the lane.

‘Where are the others?’ Arif hissed, not recognising his own voice it was so thin and high.

Ferrin made a string of noises, one of which sounded a little like _Eden_. There was blood in his mouth.

‘You’re not making sense.’ Arif looked at Cole but he was staring wide-eyed and silently at Ferrin, rooted to the spot. Scooting forwards a little way, Arif got his arms around Ferrin and pulled him away from the bike, laying him gently on the tarmac.

Stretched out where they could see the whole of him, he looked even worse.

He groaned again, a high whine, and then rolled just slightly, vomiting blood.

‘Oh shit,’ Arif said. ‘ _Oh shit_.’

There was a shout and Jonah came hurtling towards them, Dana’s medical bag in his hand and Dana just a little behind him.

‘What happened?’ she asked breathlessly as she knelt in front of Ferrin, resting a hand carefully over her rounded stomach as she did. She was wearing a huge coat, possibly belonging to Cole, loose over her nightdress, and she tried to pull it closed but couldn’t get it over her tummy.

She looked at Cole and he looked right back, splatters of blood on his t-shirt and his face and even still on his arms. She pursed her lips and turned back to Ferrin, prying one of his eyes open and peering inside and then doing the same to his mouth.

Arif found his gaze locked on her stomach, unable to look away, and his thoughts similarly caught on a memory that was only a few weeks old, of being drunk and warm, his arms around Indy and Dana whispering to them, as drunk as they were but on giddy excitement instead of beer. ‘ _Twins_ ,’ she’d said, her face looking like it might just split in two. ‘Can you believe it?’

Indy had looked like she was going to be sick.

‘How bad is it? Can you walk?’ Jonah asked.

Arif tore his eyes away from Dana and looked up.

Cole and Jonah exchanged a look and Arif noticed for the first time how awkwardly Cole was sitting on the cold tarmac, how one of his knees was a different size to the other, how one leg of the fresh jogging bottoms was already stained dark red.

Jonah swallowed and twisted his body, looking over the top of Ferrin, at the motorbike.

Cole followed his gaze, squinted at one of the wheels and then shook his head.

Jonah swore quietly and then looked at Arif.

His mouth was dry. ‘My dad has the truck,’ he said.

Cupping both of his hands together, Jonah rubbed them over his face. ‘Fuck,’ he said. He climbed to his feet and held a hand out to help Arif up. ‘We better get a move on.’

Arif scrambled after him and they jogged down the lane. ‘Where are we going?’

‘Where d’you think?’ Jonah snapped.

 

Outside Cole and Dana’s place, Jonah’s half-dead four-by-four was parked, caked in putrid-smelling farmyard muck.

The engine screamed when Jonah started it, and then settled into a low groan as he changed up the gears quickly and set them tearing down the unfinished lane.

Once they were well underway, he reached behind him for a heavy duffle bag and dumped it on Arif’s lap. ‘That’s all we got,’ he said. ‘Everythin’ else, and most of the ammo, is with the others. You know how to use any of these?’

Arif ran his hands over the heavy, cold metal body of a gun. He was shaking. ‘I think so,’ he managed.

Jonah nodded, keeping his eyes on the road. ‘You got much experience with … you know, close combat and stuff?’

‘Shit. Not for years. It’s … Fuck. It’s been ages.’

‘Better than nothin’, I suppose.’ His voice sounded completely different, his posture was totally unlike him, and Arif remembered with a jolt that Jonah had done his ten years of service, just like Dana had.

They were driving as fast as the ancient car could manage down a bumpy, winding road in the middle of nowhere. Jonah cut the lights off and Arif had never been so glad of a full moon in his entire life. The track was completely dark without the illumination of the headlights. It was as though there was nothing in front of them, that on the other side of the windscreen there was a void, a black hole filled with sucking, grasping nothingness.

Arif wanted to cry.

The blue light from the moon picked out the tops of the hedgerows that crowded them on either side, the only thing guiding them as they hurtled along.

‘Why?’ Arif heard himself squeak.

Jonah’s lips were set in a grim, flat line. ‘This is a trap, Arif. That’s the only reason they’d send Ferrin back to us like that. Bait. They’re holdin’ the others and waitin’ for us to get there. The only thing we have on our side is a small element of surprise if they don’t know exactly when we’re gonna get there.’ He started to slow the car and then turned the nose into a small area with no hedge, where a gate into a field was. He switched off the engine, grabbed the duffle bag, and sprang out of the car, over the gate, and disappeared into the dark of the field.

Shaking so badly he nearly fell off the gate, Arif followed him.

 

Across the field, they could just make out a single light inside a massive house. Jonah led them a little way through long, unkempt grass and then put the duffle down and crouched beside it.

He started taking guns out one by one and checking them. There were only three – the shotgun Cole had brought back with him, a rifle that looked like it had been in some sort of accident and a little pistol.

Jonah’s expression was grave. He reached into his pocket and took out a long knife with a crude wooden sheath and handed it to Arif along with the pistol. ‘I feel like that’s gonna work the best for you,’ he said. ‘There’s six shots in there, make sure you count them so you know when you’re out. I’ll take the front and you take the back. Be as quiet as you can for as long as you can. Check every room. When you see someone, as soon as you don’t recognise them, shoot them. And shoot to kill. We can’t risk anyone gettin’ back up. Okay?’

Arif whimpered.

They got up and then started a crouching run across the field towards the house.

 

At the edge of the meadow, they parted ways and Jonah nodded just once to Arif before vaulting over the fence and disappearing into the dark.

Arif made his way around to the back of the house, keeping low and trying to keep his breathing quiet. Outside the back door, he crouched, straining to listen for any sound on the other side of the door. The harder he tried, the louder the blood rushing in his ears was and after a little while he let out a breath and started to reach towards the handle.

There was a noise. A squeak. Like a chair being pushed back on a wooden floor.

He froze, listening intently once more.

The sound came again, a little louder this time and joined by a male gasp.

Arif narrowed his eyes and silently turned the handle, letting the door open just a crack, every muscle in his body tense, wholly expecting it to make a sound.

From inside what had to be a kitchen came a shuffle and then a string of hissed curses that Arif recognised as Sorrayian.

‘Ede?’ he whispered.

There was a gaping pause of total silence. Arif held his breath for long enough that his blood started to boom in his ears.

He almost didn’t hear it when Eden whisper-shouted back to him, ‘Well? Are you gonna fuckin’ help me or not?’

He breathed an enormous sigh of relief and pushed the door the rest of the way open and stepped inside.

Eden was tied to a chair, his fingers, behind his back, bulging and purplish-red where the blood was being cut off. He was wriggling, his arms twisted and the chair balanced on only one leg. His beat-up face was like thunder under the yellow glow of the kitchen light as he took Arif in.

Pulling the knife out of his pocket, Arif quickly crossed the floor and started hacking through the thick ropes, nicking Eden’s hands a couple of times as he did.

Once he was free, rubbing his sore fingers as the blood rushed back to them, Eden looked at him. ‘Ferrin?’

Arif glanced away. ‘He’s with Dana.’

Eden searched his face for a couple of moments and then turned away. He was clutching his right hand, its fingers misshapen.

‘Is Indy okay?’ Arif asked him eventually, his voice shaking.

‘We’ll find her,’ Eden replied without looking at him. He started leading Arif through the house. ‘How good of an aim you got?’

‘I’m a pilot,’ Arif said.

Eden just looked at him, like he didn’t see how the two things were linked at all.

Arif sighed and followed him, trying to remember to keep his gun in front of him and ready.

The next room they passed through was clear, but the one after that wasn’t.

Eden paused and looked at the body slumped over the table. Blood seemed to have got on every surface and every object in the room. His eyes were open but one of them was ruined beyond recognition, pushed part way out of the socket and onto his cheek, strange juices running down his face from it. He was missing most of his fingernails and one of his fingers had a tack clean through it and hammered into the table underneath.

Arif gagged.

‘You ever killed anyone?’ Eden asked, glancing at him.

He shook his head.

‘Ever just shot someone?’

He shook his head again. ‘I’m a pilot, remember? I never get this close.’

Eden just stared at him, eyebrows raised. ‘ _Fuck_ ,’ he said.

Arif closed his eyes and tried to blot out the images of the dead man in front of them. Death always brought one thing to the front of his mind and memories of Keinath and imagined visions of him staring unseeing from a bathtub filled with blood were beyond unhelpful right then.

They moved on a couple of steps and then Eden stopped dead and closed his eyes, his head tilting one way just slightly.

Arif looked down at him, brow furrowed.

‘Indy’s upstairs,’ Eden said.

‘I thought it was only Fe who was weird like that?’

Eden scowled at him. ‘Seeing as she’s  _your_ wife, maybe _you’re_ the one who should be weird like that for her.’

Arif huffed out a breath and they stepped into the hallway and began creeping up the stairs, slowly moving their weight onto each step to try to stop any creaking.

At the top, Eden looked one way and then the other, his eyes narrowed just slightly, and then led them to a closed door.

They both leant towards it, listening intently, and from the other side they could make out noises. A voice.

‘—dumb bitch,’ a man said.

There was a slap and then a sharp yelp that made Arif tense up.

‘Not fighting now, are ya?’ the man crowed. There was a noise that sounded distinctly like the jangle of a belt being undone, followed by a loud rustling and some dull thumps, like a struggle.

Without thinking, Arif reached out and took hold of Eden’s hand. There were calluses on his fingers, probably from playing guitar, but Arif couldn’t help thinking they lined up exactly with the trigger on his favourite rifle.

Eden squeezed his hand. In the incredibly faint light, his eyes were wide, the whites shining.

There were other noises coming from inside the room, the dull snap of an old bedspring pinging back into place, quiet murmurs and then a tiny feminine squeal.

‘How do ya like that?’ came the man’s voice again, breathy, like he was exerting himself. ‘Hey? How do ya like that?’

Arif was trembling all over. He felt a tear arc down the slope of his cheek as he stood in the corridor, clutching Eden’s hand tightly in the half light.

From downstairs, they heard a gunshot.

The noises in the room next to them fell silent. It was like the whole house was holding its breath.

For a couple of minutes, the silence dragged on and then there was a shout, short and cut off sharply by a second gunshot.

The door right beside them flew open, and, as one, Eden and Arif took a step back, deeper into the shadows, as a man poked his head out, listening.

Holding his breath, Arif’s eyes roved over the man of their own accord and he felt his face screwing up in disgust and pure rage.

Eden tensed all over, straightening his shoulders, and Arif knew this was their time to attack. He pulled himself together and got ready to leap on the man.

Before he could move, the man shot forwards and crashed into the bannister at the top of the stairs.

Indy was on his back.

They struggled back and forth for a bit and then she got a good grip on him and shoved him into the wooden railings again, hard enough that one of them splintered and nearly broke completely in half. She kicked his feet from under him while he was stunned and then swiped the gun from a holster under his arm.

She held it at arm’s length and squeezed the trigger twice in quick succession, burying two slugs neatly in the back of his head. She stared down at him for a moment longer and then angled a sharp kick at his ribs.

His trousers and underwear were around his ankles.

Indy looked straight over at them. Her hair was a wild mess and she was just as covered in blood splatter as Cole had been, but on her face were two clean, shining streaks. She was completely naked from the waist down, apart from a length of rope that was looped around one of her ankles. She held Arif’s gaze for a moment or two and then looked sharply away, crossing the hallway floor to them in just a couple of steps.

She pulled the open door shut firmly.

Taking the gun out of Arif’s hand, she pushed the chamber out and checked how many shots were in it, then nodded to herself.

Swallowing, keeping his eyes low, Eden finally dropped Arif’s hand and stepped up to Indy, shrugging off his denim jacket, peeling it carefully over his ruined fingers and wrapping it around Indy’s waist, tying the arms together. He met her eyes just briefly and then cleared his throat and looked away again.

One of the stairs creaked loudly and they all spun to face the noise.

The silence was suffocating as they waited to hear something else, and then the air moved, pushed out by an approaching body.

Narrowing her eyes, Indy said something in hushed Sorrayian and the stairs answered.

Jonah appeared, stepping on to the landing and looking around at them all. He nodded quickly to Eden.

Indy asked him something and he held up two fingers. She frowned over at Eden and he shook his head. She pulled a face and muttered something in Sorrayian again. She passed the gun she’d taken off the dead man at her feet to Jonah, like she didn’t want to have to touch it, and he calmly slipped it into the waistband of his trousers, not letting his rifle drop for even a moment.

They both started to move, but Eden took a step back, shaking his head. ‘What about Arif?’

‘What about him?’ Jonah asked.

‘You didn’t ask him. Maybe he—’

Jonah exchanged a look with Indy and then glanced at Arif. ‘Did you see anyone on the way up here? Have you shot anyone?’

Arif swallowed and shook his head, his gaze returning over and over to Indy, even though she was keeping her own fixed away from him.

‘Then there’s still two more,’ Indy said, starting down the stairs again.

Indy was holding her arm strangely, stiff and close to her body. Arif kept trying to see more closely in the dark, trying to work out if she’d been shot.

Without thinking, he reached out a hand and gently rested two fingers on her shoulder. Immediately she groaned, low and guttural, and he felt her body tighten under his touch. He dropped his arm back by his side.

 

The house could have been a farmhouse at one time, or maybe it still was. It was hard to tell when it was so dark and filled with dead bodies and surrounded by fields of nothing but grass, as far as Arif had seen, no crops or animals to speak of, but the place was ancient. It shifted by itself, like it was breathing or swaying in the wind, throwing creaking, groaning noises up and making every hair on Arif’s body stand on end, keeping him on high alert, primed and sensitive for any noise or movement and making him jump every time the house shifted again. Everything was covered in a thick layer of greasy dust and it even streaked down the painted walls. The floorboards were uneven and where there were some walls that were papered, the paper was curling and peeling away from the stone or wood underneath. Every inch of the house was filled with some kind of junk. Books and newspapers were piled against the walls, old fashioned dressers heaved under stacks of tut and odds and ends, figurines and decorative plates and glassware and tacky plastic things. There was too much furniture in every room, chairs heaped together, some on top of the others, mismatched blankets strewn all around, most with holes through them, draped on top of ancient sofas and beds and tables. Even though it was a large, roomy building, every space they moved through was cramped and small, keeping them bunched close together.

As they stepped into the room with the tortured man still slumped over the table, on the way to the back staircase, Arif took note of Indy’s expression.

Her lip was curled as she looked at him, her right arm crossing her body to pull her left in tight.

Arif realised he could see the exposed bone inside one of the man’s fingers and had to stifle another gag.

Indy glanced his way, her brows drawing together in a scowl. ‘It’s just business,’ she snapped.

‘He made it harder than it needed to be,’ Eden added.

Arif took one step further and then shot back again; he’d stepped on something soft and squishy. He looked down, searching the ground, and eventually found something round and fleshy, with a small cord trailing off it. It looked a lot like the eye hanging out of the man’s head, but no part of it had been made to see out of. This time, Arif couldn’t supress his revulsion and his stomach immediately emptied onto the filthy, threadbare carpet.

They made their way up a second staircase to the top of the house, moving as quietly as possible as they crept through the overcrowded, creaky rooms. At the far end of the building they approached a closed door.

The energy was different there, more living, and Arif wasn’t surprised when Indy held up a hand and called them all to a halt, crouching as she placed her ear against the keyhole.

She whispered something to Jonah and Eden and they both nodded before she stepped back.

Jonah silently passed Cole’s shotgun to Eden and him and Indy took up prepared stances behind Jonah, all three of them pointing their guns at the closed door. Raising a leg, Jonah kicked once beside the lock on the door. The ancient wood caved immediately and as it did the three of them stormed forward and burst into the room, shouting and filling the space imposingly.

Despite his shattered fingers, Eden’s gun went off quickly as he swept towards the right of the room.

Arif followed them slowly, his feet feeling more like they were stepping on clouds than wood-worm infested floorboards.

Eden fired again and the man he was stood over slumped on the ground and stopped moving. He raised his head quickly and found the others.

Jonah had his rifle against the back of another man’s head, holding him in place while Indy ran her hands down him and removed all of his weapons from his pockets.

There was a desk in the middle of the room, almost buckling under the weight of piles and piles of paperwork and log books.

The last remaining man was stood in front of an open safe. Jonah kept his gun trained on him with one hand while he reached up and took a stack of cash and another log book out of the safe.

‘It’s all here,’ Eden said, struggling to flick through the books on the desk with his undamaged hand. ‘No reason to keep him.’

Jonah glanced back at Indy and waited until she nodded at him, just once, before shooting the man in the back of the head from point blank range.

Arif thought he heard him whimper ‘ _Please_ ,’ as he went down, but it was impossible to tell if it wasn’t just his final breath leaving his lungs.

Indy wiped her good arm over her face, looking suddenly old and tired. ‘Bring the car down,’ she said to Jonah.

He straightened up, dropping his gun to his side finally, and stepped over the body and back out into the rest of the house.

Turning at a small noise, Indy looked over at Eden as he unzipped his fly and started to piss on the body in front of him. His face was hard but his eyes were blazing. He looked on the verge of tears.

Indy watched him for a few moments, her eyes heavy. ‘Ah can’t carry this stuff,’ she said quietly.

Eden nodded without looking at her, finished, shook himself off and tucked himself back in his trousers. ‘We got this,’ he told her, sweeping up an armful of papers, his knees nearly buckling under the weight.

Swallowing, Arif stepped up to the table again and picked up a stack of log books. One on the top of the pile was open and he cast his eyes over the neat rows of numbers and letters. He couldn’t make any kind of sense of them.

They started to slowly make their way downstairs, Eden and Arif struggling over the uneven flooring under the weight of their loads. Headlights flicked up the walls and swept across the room as Jonah pulled the car closer to the house. He bounded inside, took in the three of them, and then started up the stairs again, returning a few minutes later with bundles of papers and loading them into the open back of the four by four with the others.

Indy moved away, back inside and into the kitchen, and started to fiddle with the stove.

Arif followed her, abandoning his paperwork-carrying duties. ‘Are you all right?’ he asked quietly, watching her as she moved around the kitchen, still holding her left arm by her side, the denim-jacket-skirt revealing flashes of the dark skin of her legs as she moved.

‘We need to torch this place,’ she replied without turning around to look at him.

‘Right,’ Arif said.

‘Are you injured? Did they …?’ She glanced over her shoulder at him in time to see Arif shake his head. ‘Cole must be? And Ferrin …’

Biting his lower lip, Arif dropped his gaze.

‘Go help the others,’ Indy said, turning away again and heading out of the back door towards a sagging equipment shed.

Arif watched her through the kitchen window, illuminated by the moon, for a few more moments and then turned and headed after the others back up the stairs.

Indy paced through the house dragging a massive can of fuel on the end of the twine that had been around her ankle. The fumes were acrid and made her cough but she carried on until the can was empty then met the others outside. She reached into Jonah’s pocket, pulled out a lighter and lit a fuel-covered cloth before tossing it in through the front door. There were a few quiet moments while the rag lay burning and then there was a _whoomph_ as the fire caught and stole all the oxygen from the air around it.

‘Let’s go,’ Indy said, turning her back on the house as a window shattered and climbing into the back of the car, over the heaps of papers and books, Eden’s jacket only just covering her arse as she took a seat on one of the benches.

The men exchanged a look and then Arif scrambled up after her and Eden and Jonah moved around to the front.

Arif stretched out his hand and covered Indy’s. She flinched and pulled hers away, turning her head so he wasn’t in her eyeline.

They drove on in silence, bouncing over the uneven track.

 

Indy directed Jonah to carry on right to the top of the lane, to the Ghouls’ place. There was an unfamiliar car parked outside and Eden swore loudly as he jumped down from the cab, before Jonah had even stopped, and sprinted into the house.

The side of the car was painted with the name of the local farm vet.

The others tore inside after Eden, straight to the back of the house and into the kitchen.

Everything had been swept off the table and Ferrin lay on top, on a towel soaked with blood. Cole was perched above him, beside the sink, a needle in his arm connected to one in Ferrin’s. His eyes were wide as he looked up and met theirs.

‘He’s going to be fine, Eden,’ Dana said quickly, looking up from where she was beside another man, both of them with blood up to their elbows from where they were reaching into a recess they’d cut in Ferrin’s stomach. ‘He was bleeding internally but we’ve patched the worst of it up.’

Eden, face as pale as the moon, took a few steps back, until he was against Jonah, who patted his shoulder.

Dana wiped her face with the back of her wrist. There was a smudge of blood across her nose and a surgical clamp in her hands.

‘What sort of state are the rest of you in?’ the vet asked, looking at them over his glasses as he moved aside to let Dana start suturing Ferrin’s stomach back together. ‘You’re going to need stitches in that,’ he said, nodding his head to a gash above Indy’s eye.

‘Mama?’ a little voice said.

Indy jumped and Arif spun quickly, scooping a tiny body off the floor and turning sharply, carrying him out of the room before he could see anything.

‘You should be asleep, Rin,’ he said quietly, unable to keep the waver and croak out of his voice as he padded up the staircase carrying his son.

Cole narrowed his eyes at his sister, taking in the jacket tied around her waist for the first time. With a small growl, he started to shuffle forward, to the edge of the counter.

With a single, gentle hand, the vet pressed him backwards. ‘You shouldn’t be putting any weight on that leg, son,’ he said quietly.

‘Anythin’ I can do, doc?’ Jonah asked, his hand still resting on Eden’s shoulder.

Dana glanced over at him, her brow furrowed in concentration. ‘Ede?’ she prompted, startling his eyes off Ferrin’s body.

‘Uh … I think my fingers are broken,’ he said, holding up his right hand.

Squinting at them, Jonah squeezed one of his fingers and then, when Eden winced, rummaged in Dana’s big medical bag and pulled out a few splints and some tape.

The vet beckoned Indy over, into the light. ‘Let’s take a look at that laceration, lass,’ he said. He tipped Indy’s head back and sucked his teeth.

She shivered in his hold.

‘Yeah, a couple stitches should fix that. Is your arm hurt?’

‘Think my shoulder’s dislocated,’ she mumbled, shrinking in on herself a bit and turning her face away from him as far as she could. ‘Cole got shot.’

‘Mm, so I saw. We’ll pick the pellets out of him once the transfusion is finished.’

Arif walked back in, holding a pair of loose, soft jogging bottoms. He stepped between Indy and the vet. ‘Dana can patch Indy up,’ he said firmly, bending over to let her step into the trousers and pulling them up over her hips for her.

The vet blinked quickly. ‘Ah … Okay, then …’

Leading her across to the other side of the table, Arif pushed Indy gently into a chair and tucked his hand around the back of her head, cradling it against his stomach and stroking her messy hair.

There was a whimper from the table and Eden shot forwards, pulling away from Jonah, who was trying to tape splints to his shattered fingers.

‘Lie down, Ferrin,’ Dana said calmly, pressing him back on to the table. ‘You have a lot of stitches in your tummy, okay? You need to stay still so they don’t pull out.’

‘Ede?’ he squeaked, voice hoarse and croaky.

Eden stepped closer and took his hand.

Ferrin let his head slump back against the table. ‘You’re okay?’ he murmured.

Eden nodded quickly and then glanced Indy’s way and back again.

His eyes struggling to stay open, Ferrin tried to focus on his face. ‘Are you … crying? Why …?’

Dropping his head, Eden failed to swallow a loud sob, and the rest of the room lowered their heads and angled their gazes at the floor.

‘Put him upstairs,’ Arif quietly told Jonah. ‘My dad’s not gonna be back all week.’

Jonah nodded and, once Cole had been disconnected from him, scooped Ferrin up, bridal style, and carried him up the stairs to Brian’s room with Eden trailing after him.

‘Your shoulder, you said, Indy?’ Dana asked gently, rinsing her bloody hands in the sink while the vet took a large pair of tweezers and started plucking bits of metal out of Cole’s knee.

Indy nodded, wincing just slightly as Arif helped her up onto the kitchen table.

Narrowing her eyes, Dana dug the pads of her fingers into Indy’s shoulder and then nodded to herself. ‘Yeah, that’s dislocated all right. I, uh, I’m not going to be able to pop it back in for you.’ She swallowed and smoothed a hand over her bump apologetically. ‘Maybe if—’

She started to turn towards the vet, but Eden, reappearing in the doorway, his eyes dark and hooded, cut her off with a nod in Arif’s direction. ‘It’s fine. We’ve got this.’

Arif shared a look with him and Dana raised her eyebrows before moving back wordlessly.

Stepping up to the table and then clearing his throat and glancing down sheepishly, Eden mumbled, ‘Uh, so, what do we do?’

Dana smiled at him reassuringly. ‘Arif, if you stand on the other side, there, that’s it, and hold Indy nice and still, and then, Ede, you want to just, very slowly, rotate her arm up, that’s it, apply a touch more pressure and it should just, if we’re lucky—’

There was a loud _pop_.

‘ _Shit_ ,’ Indy hissed, pressing her forehead against Arif’s shoulder.

Dana beamed. ‘That wasn’t so bad, now, was it?’

‘Not sure ah’d do it again,’ Indy mumbled, her teeth clenched.

‘Well, it went back in nice and easily, so hopefully there’s not too much damage, but I’ll strap it up for you tonight to keep it from moving around too much, all right?’ She moved over to her medical bag and reached her hand into its cavernous innards. ‘And then I’ll finish taping your fingers, Ede, and pop a dressing on your head, Indy.’

‘I think I’m just about done here,’ the vet said, wiping Cole’s knee with an antiseptic solution and then taping a pad over it.

Cole nodded at him just once and then immediately slipped off the counter and into the hallway, him and Jonah bending their heads close together in discussion.

‘My goodness, is that really the time?’ the vet asked, his eyes on the lightening sky through the window above the sink as he washed his hands. ‘I best be off.’

‘Thank you again for your help,’ Dana said, smiling at him.

He shook his head. ‘I hope to see you all again soon – on better terms, mind.’

Finishing up the last of her taping, Dana leant back against a counter and puffed her cheeks out as she expelled a breath, cradling her stomach. ‘Well,’ she said, ‘I don’t know about you three, but I am craving my bed something fierce.’

Cole put his head around the door and nodded to her.

Gathering her enormous bag up, Dana wagged a finger at him. ‘You shouldn’t be putting weight on that knee, mister.’

Gently, he pried the bag out of her hands and touched her arm as she drew level with him and they made their way out of the house together.

‘Goodnight!’ Dana called back to them.

Indy, Arif and Eden each exchanged a look and the three of them headed up to bed.

 

Ferrin was mumbling and twitching sharply, but it didn’t look like he was going to wake up anytime soon and Eden was fed up with staring at his pale face and pained frown. Very carefully, he slid out of the double bed and padded through into the next room.

Indy had her back to him, folding some clothes, but she glanced over her shoulder and raised an eyebrow at him. ‘You should knock, Ede, ah could’a been in just my kecks.’

Eden blushed and studied the floor, fiddling with the hem of his shirt, his fingers stiff inside the tape and splints. ‘Indy … I—’

‘You want your jacket back? Ri threw it in the wash first thing, but ah can have it dry for you by this afternoon.’

He shook his head firmly, a scowl darkening his face. ‘Burn it,’ he growled.

Indy raised her eyebrows. ‘Kind of a waste?’

‘Where _is_ Arif?’

‘Cole called him over early to have breakfast; he wasn’t sleeping anyway.’

Eden’s mouth opened and then shut again.

Indy hummed in agreement, grinning crookedly at him. ‘Yeah, exactly, so we’re all gonna hear about it.’

Snorting loudly, Eden’s face screwed up. ‘If Cole wants to chew us out for fucking up a simple job, he can _fuck off_. _He’s_ the one who left before we were totally done, he—’

Indy shut him up with a mere raise of her eyebrow. ‘You can’t blame him for wantin’ to get home, can you? An’ none of us could’a guessed those guys was on their way down. It’s just one of them things.’

Rolling his eyes with a huff, Eden folded his arms. ‘Whatever,’ he snarled.

‘How’s Fe?’

Eden’s shoulders slumped. ‘Dead to the world, but he doesn’t look any worse than last night.’ He peeked upwards at her. ‘Cole’s not gonna let you come out on any more jobs after … after _last night_. You realise that, right?’

Indy shot a look at him. ‘Since when was it up to him?’

Eden fixed a stubborn, slightly pouty look at the carpet. ‘I … I think he’s right, Indy. After … I never realised … I never thought that …’

‘Fe got a lot more hurt than ah did,’ Indy told him, her voice cold.

Eden shook his head, his gaze still locked downward.

‘ _Mama_ ,’ a little voice called.

Indy turned around to scoop Rin out of the cot, one armed, and balanced him on her hip. ‘Ah think your sister could sleep through the end of the world, hm?’ she cooed to him, carefully tucking a thin blanket back over Meli with her injured arm.

When she turned back to look at him, Eden’s eyes were blazing.

‘ _Indy_!’ he snarled.

‘It’s fine.’

‘It is _not_ fine! How can you act like this is okay?’

‘Because it _is_.’

He shook his head, closed his eyes. ‘Indy …’

She shrugged and adjusted Rin on her hip, exposing a slither of dark flesh, then offered him a half smile. ‘Ah’m a bit sore, but that’s just how it is the mornin’ after.’

Eden’s breath left him sharply and he pressed his eyes together even tighter. ‘I know what Isaak did,’ he whispered. ‘I—’

Casting a worried glance into the hallway, Indy pulled the bedroom door shut and then cupped a hand over Rin’s ear as he nuzzled into her side before she took a step closer to Eden. ‘Watch what you fuckin’ say,’ she hissed.

Eden couldn’t meet her eyes. His own were watering.

‘It’s done, Ede, it can’t be changed – last night, Isaak, everythin’ else – you gotta just let it go. We done everythin’ we could. That fella, he's no one, he doesn't deserve to be in our heads, and now he’s not gonna be hurtin’ anyone again. Fe’s all right, we all got out in one piece. Only thing you can do is let it go.’

A single tear traced the contour of Eden’s cheek. ‘I think … I’m gonna have a shower. You wanna go first?’

‘Ah’ve already had three,’ she said quietly, her smile small and not quite meeting her eyes.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks so much for reading!
> 
> I actually wrote this about a year ago, when I was in therapy, and I think you can tell, haha. 
> 
> For anyone who's hurting, you *can* get better. Indy's methods aren't necessarily right (I nearly threw things at my therapist when she told me to let stuff go), but it worked for me (with practise!).
> 
> If anyone's interested, I have art of some of these guys over on my tumblr and I'm crashouch there, too.
> 
> Good luck, thank you, I love you <3


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